How (and why) to Ramble On your domestic shorthair

I had lunch with my Dad today and he was raging about the $75/ea on the pair of O2 sensors he needs to replace on his truck. I pulled out my phone and showed him the $23 Bosch direct fit sensors on RockAuto rather than the crap universal "choose your own adventure" ones from the FLAPS. Suddenly I'm tied into a weekend of "help the old man tune up his truck." I think he literally went page by page and added things to his cart that he'd been putting off for quite some time. Sounds like I get to become an expert in all things 90s Ford pickups Just wait till I tell him we are going to pull the injectors and send them to WitchHunter.

Sounds like a big mistake. After surgery I had to gradually step myself down, and it took longer than I'd like it to have taken. You will get there eventually, keep a positive attitude.

On this subject, I got a jury summons today. I'm too busy for this ****. I'd be 100% happy to do this any other time of year, but mid Nov through Dec is the busiest time of the year for me. Gahhhhhhh.....

The “into to megasquirt thread” mentions that the MS3 basic has 5 inputs with built in pull up resistors - and I was just wondering why it would have so many, while the MS3Pro PnP has just 2 (with no pull ups?)

MS Labs: Plug and Play Megasquirt ECUs for ANY 90-05 Miata (NA, NB1, NB2 w/VVT, MSM), including basemaps to get you started ASAP. PM me or email or details.For support on MS Labs ECUs: Please email, be sure to include the unit's serial number and include a datalog and your current map.

Depends on the specific implementation, as Communism is a rather broad ideal.

In most forms of modern communism (Soviet, Chinese, etc), the concept of wages is not highly dissimilar from western-style capitalism in a labor union environment. Workers are compensated based upon their skill level, seniority, etc.

The most significant functional difference between modern communism and western capitalism is that the Means of Production (factories, stores, farmland, fishing vessels, etc) are owned by The People, or as a practical matter, by The State as a proxy. Obviously China has eased up on this considerably in recent decades and functions more as a semi-fascist socialist state than a pure communist state, but that's the fundamental distinguishing ideal behind Marxist-Leninist economic theory. The State takes on the role which in western capitalism would be occupied by corporations (and other forms of business organization) and implements Central Planning, wherein all businesses' forecasting, purchasing, production planning, etc., are coordinated by The State in an effort to prevent both surplus and shortfall of production, control retail prices, and otherwise ensure a uniform and consistent economy.

In other words, imagine if McDonald's or WalMart owned literally every single business in the US.

I want a Win8 device that can take the place of both my 8" Android tablet and my ultraportable Win7 laptop. It should have a 10" screen, a detachable keyboard which has a decent feel and two (no more, no fewer) tactile buttons at the bottom of a touchpad. Ideally, the keyboard should weigh nothing, have no thickness and double as a screen-protector, although a reasonable mass and thickness is not grounds for total exclusion. The machine should have a current-gen i3 or i5 processor and at least 8 gigs of RAM. SSD size is irrelevant so long as it can hold a few apps (AutoCAD 2014, Office, Chrome, etc) on the main storage and support a 128 gig SD card for data. It should have two full-size USB port and some form of HDMI port (dongles ok for HDMI). Battery life should be up to the task of web-surfing and playing .MKV-encoded 720p video for about 8 hours. A floppy drive is not required.

Your only current option, Joe, would be the Surface Pro 3. Nobody else makes one as powerful to my knowledge.

I don't know if it has even one button, let alone two on the trackpad.

I don't know if it is available with that much RAM.

Aside from them, it's probably ASUS if you still want good quality. the Lenovo Yoga line would mostly fit the bill but the keyboard doesn't detach (it folds all the way back and is still really thin on the new models, but no matter how you slice it you've got a keyboard on the bottom).

Of course you can't use transistors or tubes. I need every AND OR XOR NAND to show physical movement.

I've been thinking about this a lot. And I've pretty much got the fundamental idea ironed out.

No ANDs. No ORs. No digital logic at all, for that matter.

A 1.6-style mechanical AFM is used, wherein the analog output of the potentiometer is part of a variable R/C time delay circuit. This sets up an injector duration (a resettable one-shot, essentially) which is triggered by the distributor points, causing one injection of predetermined duration for each points closure.

I just can't figure out how to physically implement it without something that functions like an op-amp. I need a frequency-to-voltage converter to correct the AFM signal against engine RPM, and another to do temperature compensation. I could implement it in either tubes or transistors, but I simply cannot think of a way to do this right without some kind of amplifier.

In other words, there's a reason that the invention of the triode was a prerequisite to the creation of electronic computers.

edit: actually, what about a mechanical-advance distributor with a potentiometer attached to the advance mechanism? There's my RPM-to-voltage converter. Still not sure about temperature compensation. I could do it very coarsely with a couple of temperature switches (like the fan switch in a '90-'93 Miata) set at staggered temperature thresholds...

I've been thinking about this a lot. And I've pretty much got the fundamental idea ironed out.

No ANDs. No ORs. No digital logic at all, for that matter.

A 1.6-style mechanical AFM is used, wherein the analog output of the potentiometer is part of a variable R/C time delay circuit. This sets up an injector duration (a resettable one-shot, essentially) which is triggered by the distributor points, causing one injection of predetermined duration for each points closure.

I just can't figure out how to physically implement it without something that functions like an op-amp. I need a frequency-to-voltage converter to correct the AFM signal against engine RPM, and another to do temperature compensation. I could implement it in either tubes or transistors, but I simply cannot think of a way to do this right without some kind of amplifier.

In other words, there's a reason that the invention of the triode was a prerequisite to the creation of electronic computers.

edit: actually, what about a mechanical-advance distributor with a potentiometer attached to the advance mechanism? There's my RPM-to-voltage converter. Still not sure about temperature compensation. I could do it very coarsely with a couple of temperature switches (like the fan switch in a '90-'93 Miata) set at staggered temperature thresholds...

Resistors and Capacitors exist in mechanical computers?

I think you need to be thinking more in terms of dampers and springs and flywheels.

You can use a vacuum advance. That's mechanical.

And a bi-metallic strip would work for temperature sensing and/or switching.

The only electricity you're allowed to use is:
1) to fire the spark plugs directly from a coil (mechanically switched)
2) to power the computer prior to starting the vehicle, after that it should (could?) be self-sustaining.

I think you need to be thinking more in terms of dampers and springs and flywheels.

Oh. I thought you were looking for an electromechanical system, using relays and whatnot.

Purely mechanical fuel injection been done already.

A lot.

The first experimental systems came out of France around 1905, and during WWII, the majority of German combat aircraft were equipped with direct-injection.

The first automotive applications came from Mercedes in the 1950s, first in their 1954 F1 cars, and later that decade in the 300SL / SLR.

The Americans jumped on board a few years later, and in the late 60s, Bosch introduced the (still purely mechanical) continuous-injection Jetronic system which was widely used by Porsche among others.

Adding mechanical distributorless ignition to such a system would require nothing more than building a device similar to a vacuum advance distributor with four sets of points (one per coil) and no rotor.